It's what I need to do

Shit…

Stay tuned for conversation blurbs after this brief passage. *wink, wink I am still overthinking the title of this story. While I really was feeling “The Blackest Golden Birthday” I am pretty certain it wouldn’t fly with first glance people. The people who glance at a title of a book & want to read it instantly. Nor would it fly with many others, just because. So, I am seeking synonyms or a different title altogether.

Because it’s the 13th day, 13th year and on a Friday, I was thinking possibly something Friday the 13th, but that might be deceptive to the first glancers, except for the fact that the title would be in the pre-teen section of the bookstore. Plus, I really don’t feel a title with that in it at all. Not even a little bit.

Some of the things that have run through my mind, not because they are good, but because I read them and words make me happy…these words are too obscure for the reading level I’m aiming for, but I did like them. Aphotic, cimmerian, caliginous, nebulous (might give the impression of science fiction), obfuscous (I just love this word), and piceous (which works on a few levels – first it’s a zoology term, in this case the girl loves animals, not a bad way to go; second, it reminds me of the fish water sign, animals again; and Jeremy – the second oldest brother character – would be the fish sign Pices). None of those words would fit into a cool sounding title, except for maybe obfuscous (say it out loud with me ahb – fuh – skuhs). This will still be a work in progress title. No idea where I’m going with it.

In the meantime, some included conversations because, just because.

“Dad, have you ever heard of the cartoon Fat Albert?” asked Erin.

“Yes, I have, why?”

“Because there’s this one character called Mushmouth and sometimes I can’t understand what he’s saying. It reminds me of the secret language mom once taught me called “Double Dutch”.”

Jeremy proceeds to dance a weird 70s looking dance. Actually, Erin notices the dance isn’t too far off from her dad’s ridiculous dance moves. Jeremy had one arm across his body, the other waving like a hula dancer to the side of himself and a duck lips face, humming the theme song to Fat Albert.

Conversation blurb 2:

“I want to be an animal chef when I grow up,” said Erin. “Wait, not a person who cooks animals, a person who cooks for animals.”

Conversation blurb 3:

“You have to learn to trust your gut,” her mom told her. “It’s most often correct.”

“Not accurate,” Erin replied.

“Yes, most of the time it is,” her mom said.

“No.”

“Yes, you haven’t lived long enough to have experienced many accurate gut feelings.”

Her dad looks up from the baseball game and says, “I have a gut feeling. It’s the cheeseburger I had for lunch.”

For some reason after that last blurb I want to throw in a “wah, wah, waaaaah!”, you know the bad sound effect for a horrible joke?

Conversation blurb 4:

“You’re a dank meme.” Said Claire.

“Why thank you, mom,” replied Erin. “You are too kind.”

“What? Doesn’t dank mean something bad? That was supposed to be an insult.”

“Mom fail,” Erin said bringing her hand in the shape of an ‘L’ to her forehead. “A dank meme is a good meme. Something funny or epically awesome. I knew that’s how you always thought of me, Epically Awesome Erin.”

That’s it for now. It’s work and working. Thanks to my good friend Caralie for having me start this whole writing prompt thing. It’s definitely working on my writing brain.